My analysis is based on months of research which I conducted 3 years ago for a business plan for my 3rd startup company. I adopted the original research to apply to the FSP states so we can analyse the natural disaster risks present in each state.

Tornadoes

Where: The same 13 States of Tornado Alley.FSP States Affected: All of North Dakota and South Dakota. Far Eastern edges of Montana and Wyoming.When: Tornado risk peaks during May and June.

Hail

Where: The High Plains: Between North Dakota, Texas, The Rocky Mountains, and 95W Longitude. (The same 13 States of Tornado Alley.)FSP States Affected: All of North Dakota and South Dakota. Far Eastern edges of Montana and Wyoming.When: Hail risk peaks during April, May, and June. Slightly earlier than tornado season.

Wild Fires

Where: California, the Northern Rockies, and the East and West Great Basin.FSP States Affected: All wooded and mountainous areas of Montana and Wyoming. Southern Idaho.When: Wild fire risk peaks twice each year, once from March through May, and again from June to July.

Where: The Eastern U.S., specifically NY and FL.FSP States Affected: Delaware, New Hampshire, and Vermont. Wind damage is rare in these states.When: High wind risk peaks during June and July.

Severe Winter Storms

Where: Tornado Alley and the Northern States.FSP States Affected: Alaska, Idaho, Maine, Montana, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming.When: Peaks from December through February.

Severe Thunderstorms

Where: Southeastern Quadrant of the U.S. and Tornado Alley.FSP States Affected: All of North Dakota and South Dakota. Far Eastern edges of Montana and Wyoming.When: Peaks from April through June.

Hurricanes

Where: Atlantic and East Pacific Basins.FSP States Affected: Delaware, New Hampshire, and Maine. Only two hurricanes have ever hit these states in recorded history, one in 1938 and one in 1991.When: Peaks from August through October.

Idea: Using historical data and a thorough independent analysis, after we choose a state we should analyse the costs which will be incurred each year for natural disasters in our state and create an emergency fund.

This will enable our state to withstand a natural disaster without depending on the Federal government to declare a "Disaster Area" and use federal emergency funds to help us! We don't need their stinking welfare!

(update: added Earthquakes)

« Last Edit: September 05, 2003, 07:33:32 am by LeRuineur6 »

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This will enable our state to withstand a natural disaster without depending on the Federal government to declare a "Disaster Area" and use federal emergency funds to help us! We don't need their stinking welfare!

So maybe a good complementary measure would be how much damage in dollars natural disasters cause in the candidates (maybe over the last 5-10 years, with "outliers" being clearly identified).

So maybe a good complementary measure would be how much damage in dollars natural disasters cause in the candidates (maybe over the last 5-10 years, with "outliers" being clearly identified).

Good idea! If such measurements have not been taken before by someone else, it may take a while. It looks like I will have to look up the cost of each natural disaster each year for each state then add them up. It sounds easy enough but the data is probably all over the place! And then I'll need to research each instance where the annual cost was extremely high for each state.

I'm sure this research will be easier today than it was 3 years ago because so much more existing research is online nowadays.

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Please donate $5 to $10 per month to the Liberty Scholarship Fund!"Noncooperation is intended to pave the way to real, honorable, and voluntary cooperation based on mutual respect and trust." -Gandhi

Don't forget that Yellowstone National Park (WY/ID/MT) is sitting on top of the world's largest active volcano. It could erupt anytime now, or it could be quiet for another 100,000 years or so. No one knows for sure.

The last time it erupted, it deposited ten feet of volcanic ash -- in Iowa. If it goes off again, it could be the worst natural disaster in recorded human history.

Of course, the coastal states are also in danger if a large asteroid strikes anywhere in the ocean, which is more likely than one striking land somewhere.

freedomroad

Please use the 'search' feature. This has already been done a couple of times. Very complete reviews of all 10 statesw have been done. I urge everyone to use search before they ask a question. I do not know if anyone around here posts to usenet but on some newsgroups people will go crazy if you do not first use the search feature before you ask a question. I am glad that we are more mature, though.

I'll try to do all of the work for you by using the search feature when I have more time.

Very complete reviews of all 10 statesw have been done. I urge everyone to use search before they ask a question.

FreedomRoad, I apologize if I missed anything during my search of the FSP forums, but there hasn't been a natural disaster risk analysis that can be found using the FSP search feature on the phrases "natural disaster" or "disaster cost."

Perhaps these are the wrong terms to search by. If you find anything, please let me know.

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Please donate $5 to $10 per month to the Liberty Scholarship Fund!"Noncooperation is intended to pave the way to real, honorable, and voluntary cooperation based on mutual respect and trust." -Gandhi

Don't forget that Yellowstone National Park (WY/ID/MT) is sitting on top of the world's largest active volcano. It could erupt anytime now, or it could be quiet for another 100,000 years or so. No one knows for sure.

The last time it erupted, it deposited ten feet of volcanic ash -- in Iowa. If it goes off again, it could be the worst natural disaster in recorded human history.

Of course, the coastal states are also in danger if a large asteroid strikes anywhere in the ocean, which is more likely than one striking land somewhere.

Unlike Old Faithful, Steamboat is anything but predictable. It's gone as few as four days and as many as 50 years between major eruptions â€” noisy, powerful spectacles that can send hot water 300 feet or higher and churn out dense steam for hours.

Recently, though, it has been more active â€” its two eruptions so far this year came just weeks apart â€” and the emergence of a forceful new thermal feature nearby has scientists like Heasler wondering: What's happening in Norris Geyser Basin, where Steamboat is located?

"That's the million dollar question. It's changing more than anyone has noticed before," Heasler said. "Are we noticing because we're looking? Or because something is abnormal?"

What's bubbling beneath the shallow surface of the volatile basin and why has the basin floor been steadily bulging upward over the past few years?

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Please donate $5 to $10 per month to the Liberty Scholarship Fund!"Noncooperation is intended to pave the way to real, honorable, and voluntary cooperation based on mutual respect and trust." -Gandhi

A "major disaster" means any natural disaster (including hurricane, tornado, storm, flood, high water, wind-driven water, tidal wave, earthquake, drought, ice conditions, fire or other catastrophe) declared by the President to warrant federal government assistance to communities and individuals. After the President makes the declaration and defines the disaster area (if DUA benefits are made available), the Arkansas Employment Security Department announces the filing period and issues filing instructions for DUA applications in a newspaper of general circulation and other news media.

The worst school shooting in U.S. history -- at Littleton High School where two teenage gunmen killed 12 students and one teacher before shooting themselves -- was a state-declared disaster in Colorado.

"It activated the National Guard and allowed the expenditure of funds from the State Disaster Emergency Fund," said Polly White, public information officer for the Colorado Office of Emergency Management. "It was not, however, raised to a federal level because it didn't deplete the state's resources."

State-level definitions of disaster generally include acts of terrorism but many are loose enough to conceivably include crime as well. Colorado, for example, defines disaster in part as "the occurrence or imminent threat of widespread or severe damage, injury, or loss of life or property resulting from any natural cause or cause of human origin."

Colorado also activates its state disaster operations "to avert danger or damage" and includes "civil disturbance" among the specific potential disasters it lists.

If we use Colorado's definition of "imminent threat of widespread or severe damage, injury, or loss of life or property," then the following phenomena (drought, wildfires, invasive grasses, West Nile virus, cattle diseases, snow and ice storms) would all seem to classify as disasters:

Many regions of the Mountain and Western States are currently experiencing drought conditions--moderate, severe, extreme and even exceptional (the most severe drought rating)--and have been in a general drought condition for three years now. Northern NH experienced a moderate drought for about a twelve month period, but it ended some months ago.

In mid-June, extreme drought was reported in a large section of the West, including parts of New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Utah, Nevada and Arizona. Exceptional drought, the most severe, was present in small sections of Wyoming, Idaho Utah and Arizona. Moderate drought was even forecast in a section of Maine.

...if you check this MAP you'll see that, currently, cases of human infection by West Nile virus are concentrated in South Dakota, Nebraska, Colorado and Wyoming. Colorado is the most infected state in the nation. ME, NH and VT all had zero human infections as of this map.

While the New York City metropolitan area, New Jersey, Connecticut and Pennsylvania have high levels of reported bird and mosquito infections, their level of human infection is actually lower than Colorado and other Western states.

NH, by contrast, has hardly been affected:

First West Nile-Infected Mosquito Found In New HampshireNo Human Cases Reported In State

MANCHESTER, N.H. -- State health officials said Friday they have identified the state's first West Nile virus in a mosquito this year.â€¦.

Although the virus has infected more than 700 humans nationally this year and caused 16 deaths, there has never been a confirmed human case in New Hampshire.

Western cattle most threatened by West Nile Virus

If you check this [http://westnilemaps.usgs.gov/usa_human.html]MAP[/url] you'll see that animals have been hardest hit by West Nile virus in Western states like MT, WY, CO and NM. This is a serious and growing problem for ranchers and farmers in those states.

GILLETTE, Wyo. (AP) - One of the latest threats facing Wyoming doesn't involve the economy, coalbed methane or the West Nile virus. It's the abundant annual plant cheatgrass. "We have seen what cheatgrass has done to adjacent states and we should be worried because it could happen in Wyoming," said Vicki Herren, a Cheyenne-based fire ecologist for the Bureau of Land Management. Cheatgrass can easily take over fields, stealing moisture critical to native plants that wildlife depend on. It also dries out quickly and then becomes an extreme fire danger. And once cheatgrass is established, removing it is difficult and costly. "It is here but it isn't everywhere, and we'd like to prevent the further spread of it," Herren said. But very little has been done about cheatgrass in Wyoming. â€¦.

Along with West Nile virus, there are other growing disease threats impacting Western cattle: tuberculosis, brucellosis, whirling disease and chronic wasting disease

"Suddenly, there are new reasons to worry about diseases we thought were controlled long ago, such as tuberculosis and brucellosis - as well as diseases of which, until recent years, we were blissfully ignorant, such as West Nile virus, whirling disease and chronic wasting disease." --www.wolfhowl.org/archives/news/2002-05-01.txt

There's plenty of timber in Westerm Montana but the government has allowed cosmetics to dictate forestry decisions. It seems the liberals want to be able to go on top of a mountain and see pristine untouched old growth all around them.

That would be nice, but catastrophic fires occur from time to time and turn those pristine mountains into a moonscape, killing off all the wildlife and silting the rivers.

They should at least let loggers harvest areas infested with dwarf-mistletoe and other parasites and areas where there is good standing dead fire-damaged timber, but they are reluctant to even do that.

To some degree it's just a matter of "use it or lose it". Someday it will all burn down. USFS and BLM wont figure that into the equation.

I found some more info on invasive grass specie invasions, Exitus. Apparently, the FSP states most impacted by cheatgrass and leafy spurge (another noxious, invasive weed) are MT, ND, SD, WY and ID. Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming have apparently become particularly susceptible to invasive grasses because of the severe three-year drought in those states. Here is a good, brief summary of the problem:

Leafy Spurge: Infesting almost 2.5 million acres in North Dakota, Montana, South Dakota, Wyoming, Colorado, Idaho, Nebraska and Utah, leafy spurge crowds out most other vegetation, rendering lands useless; and can cause severe, life-threatening problems in grazing cattle.

Cheatgrass: One of the most dominate invasive species, cheatgrass increases the frequency of wildfires and has caused more than $1.38 billion in damage from resultant fires. States already overcome by cheatgrass infestations include: Idaho, Utah, and Nevada. States that are at risk include Colorado, Kansas, Montana, North and South Dakota, Wyoming and Oregon.

johnadams wrote: Along with West Nile virus, there are other growing disease threats impacting Western cattle: tuberculosis, brucellosis, whirling disease and chronic wasting disease

....Please note that the article I quoted from was talking about cattle, not people. ... Wyoming ... doesn't have a cattle tuberculosis problem yet (though ranchers in the Mountain states are reportedly worried it will eventually spread there from Texas and Michigan, where it is currently most prevalent), but it does have problems with cattle brucellosis, whirling disease and chronic wasting disease.

My point about the cattle diseases was that they, along with the severe drought and invasion of foreign grasses of inferior nutrition can have an impact on the cattle industry in Wyoming, and thus on the state economy in general. The cattle industry is the biggest part of the state's farm sector as the poor soil and arid climate are not well suited for farming most crops. The livestock industry is one of three large industries in Wyoming, mining and tourism being the other two. It accounts "for around 70 percent of all [agricultural] cash receipts" and "agriculture has a total economic impact of nearly $1.5 billion on the Wyoming economy. ... [F]arm and agricultural services provides 17,00 jobs in Wyoming." (Agriculture Profile)

Animal diseases can also impact hunting. And, while transmission of these diseases to humans is considered highly unlikely, scientists are unwilling to rule it out, especially given the previously-thought impossible transmission of Mad-Cow Disease to humans.

Chronic wasting disease has been documented in free-range and captive mule and whitetail deer and elk populations in northeastern Colorado and southeastern Wyoming and capitve deer in South Dakota, according to the Colorado State University College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences.

About 10 percent of those deer in southeastern Wyoming and less than one percent of elk exhibit signs of chronic wasting disease, said Terry Kreeger, supervisor of veterinary services at the Wyoming Game and Fish Department.

results of epidemiological investigations point to domestic bison as the likely source of the disease in infected cattle herds found in Wyoming and North Dakota. In addition, wild elk or bison in the GYA have been identified as the most probable source of infection for five additional cattle herds. Infected elk were the most probable source of brucellosis infection (fistulous withers) in horses in Wyoming. Most recently, elk were the source of infection of a cattle herd in Idaho.....risk of disease spread from elk is increased. APHIS has assisted the State of Wyoming with funding to vaccinate elk on elk feedgrounds to reduce the prevalence of the disease and to fund habitat improvement efforts to keep the elk dispersed over a larger area and away from cattle and feedgrounds.

Development of winter feedgrounds for elk in Wyoming during the early 1900â€™s were suspected to have led to transmission of brucellosis between livestock and wildlife. ....Blood samples from elk at feeding grounds were tested for detection of brucellosis. All feedground elk were suspected to test positive because in 18 of 23 northwest Wyoming feedgrounds elk tested positive for brucellosis.....Elk vaccination program costs ranged from $80,000 to $100,000 each year. Veterinary Services and the Wyoming Game and Fish funded the program.

Other issues discussed include the effects of government compensation to ranchers experiencing vaccination costs. Implications of the total brucellosis elimination sentiment were discussed and determined to be impractical.

8-21-2003. Thousands on Edge as British Columbia Fire Grows. Yahoo News. By Allan Dowd. Southern B.C. and Alberta, like Idaho, Montana, and western Wyoming has been suffering from severe drought.

8-21-2003. Almost all the big forest fires this year are in Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming, the 3 states suffering the most from the drought. See. U.S. Drought Severity Index (map).

8-16-2003. Wyoming antelope flourish despite drought. Billings Gazette. Good news! Sadly the same can't be said for the antelope in Idaho.

I found one reason why West Nile virus has been impacting Wyoming more than most states: stagnant pools of water at coal-bed methane drilling sites, which the feds recently started requiring (another negative impact from federal land management). ....

Dead sage grouse tested positive for West NileProtection for bird under Endangered Species Act again may be soughtBy Mead Gruver, Associated PressAugust 12, 2003

"The concern is all this standing water from coal-bed methane. There is so much more water out there, thus there is so much more mosquitoes, thus there is so much more West Nile," she said.

Drilling for coal-bed methane removes groundwater along with the gas. Federal regulations now require the water to be collected in ponds so potentially toxic minerals do not get into streams and rivers.

"It's definitely another nail in the coffin for sage grouse, because they've already got so many things that are affecting them, and then you just add one more to it," Morrison said.

Morrison's group is one of several that filed lawsuits this spring after the U.S. Bureau of Land Management released its plan for coal-bed methane development in northeast Wyoming and southeast Montana. ....

[Game and Fish Department spokesman Jeff Obrecht] said the presence of West Nile will not be an emergency for sage grouse hunters this fall. All the same, he urged hunters not to eat internal organs, such as gizzards, and to cook birds thoroughly.

....Don't be swayed by thoughts of wonderful nature parks where you might go to commune with nature when they are owned by people who think the one species which should be eliminated from the earth is man. Think about the reality of it. Vast forests teeming with animal life, until it all burns down and no place for the animals to go, and humans forbidden to enter to clear underbrush or put out the fires. ....

[My note: poor management of federal lands--including forest fires started by federal rangers--adds to the risk of wildfires.]

....the militia would probably be viewed quite well if it deployed to help fight wildfires (particularly in the west), had its members deputized to aid the local law enforcement in serious manhunts or rescue searches, and that sort of thing. ....

FSP General Discussion / Which State? / No Wildfires on: July 16, 2003, 10:21:34 am Started by Michelle, Message by Number_6

Another point in favor of NH (and, to be fair, some of the other states as well): no wildfires. I was watching the TV news this morning and it seemed like there were a lot of fires in the Rocky Mountain states. This might be important to those Porcupines who plan on living in rural areas. ....

Wow, talk about irony - I read these posts and then get this in my e-mail (I'm a physician in NH):

First Human Case of West Nile Virus in a New Hampshire Citizen

Concord, NH - The New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Community and Public Health reports the first positive case of West Nile virus in a New Hampshire resident. The 37-year-old woman from Rockingham County traveled to Nebraska prior to becoming ill. She did not require hospitalization and is now recovering and doing well.

"Because of her travel history there is a high probability of this casebeing acquired outside of New Hampshire; but even if it was a locallyacquired case, this would not be an unexpected event," said Dr. JoseMontero, Chief of the Bureau of Communicable Disease Control. "West Nile virus has been in our state for three years now. It was inevitable that someone will eventually be bitten by an infected mosquito and contract the disease.

Fortunately, prevention efforts taken by towns, residents, and our statehealth department over the past few years have contributed greatly tolowering the risk of people getting West Nile."

freedomroad

Wyoming has a HUGE underground volcano which is ready to blow from underneath. That state is going to be done soon. Alaska also has a major disaster heading it's way.

In Yellowstone there is a volcano which might be active and that might someday cause some type of reaction. First off, Cheyenne and Laramie (2 or WY's 3 largest cities) are in the opposite corner of the state. Second off, there is a much greater chance that if something were to happen because of this volcano that the people of ID and MT would be hurt much more (if there is any damage).